Tom Toles for October 21, 2020

Or in one word: Trumper

I am sadly amused by the whole QAnon thing. Contagious insanity about things that are beyond ludicrous, but so contagious that there’s nearly a Qandemic, and it apparently attracts both crazy and some violent people.

If it wasn’t so dangerous, it’d be hilarious.

And we used to cluck our tongues at regimes that embodied all those characteristics!

QAnon is 100% Russian agitprop. Sad to see how the GOP went from wanting to nuke Moscow to kissing its ass.

His LiGrBiTyQa Base – {4 beats/line}

What if his base won’t cease and desist

when by voters The Donald gets slapped on his wrist

or reviled and rejected and firmly dismissed? -

- What if these perps maliciously persist

like a nastily malignantly pus-squirting cyst?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Those colors don’t run . . .and shouldn’t run for re-election . . . ever!

“Oh my!”

(Perverse take-off, “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” George M. Cohan, 1906)

”It’s a Rancid Snot Rag”

Verses:

I’m this morning kind of cranky,

Watched Trump’s latest hanky-lanky.

All the virtues I thought valued,

He has sneered at and de-valued.

.

Though I dislike writing, raving,

Posting bad words, cyber finger-waving,

Oft times chills run up my back

To hear the nonsense of that hack.

.

And the flag that he espouses

Seems best flown by Fascist louses.

The good colors red, white, and blue,

He’s turned negative in their hue.

.

Rally around that flag, Proud Boys

And your ilk, wave your guns, make noise.

Flags of past movements like to yours

Have been flushed down Hist’try’s sewers!

.

Chorus

It’s a rancid rag,

It’s a blood-sodden flag,

And forever in Hell may it flap.

It’s a symbol there

Of hate and despair,

The pit of depraved, stinking crap.

.

All you loud-mouth fellers

That loved its negative colors

Will roast among the coals and slag.

Lest your sins in Life be forgot,

There will mock you, that burning flag!

This political cartoon wins the day! Good job Mr. Toles.

A Disgraceful Base – {3 beats/line}

In deriding The Donald’s base,

it’s hard to keep a straight face: -

- That they’re flawed is clearly the case,

and not much of a “master race”

{tho’ exalting themselves as first place}.

… Coda: – {2 beats/line}

And the Trump they embrace

is a national disgrace.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I find it a little distressing that a sitting president in an election year is campaigning on the threat of imaginary problems and foes rather than the realities most Americans are facing; the pandemic (“it’s over; we’ve turned the corner” and “I wouldn’t have done anything much differently”), the smoldering ruins of the economy (“we’re roaring back”), unemployment (“I’ve created 11.5 million new jobs” – against the more than 22 million lost because of the pandemic), that his opponent “will listen to the scientists and all those other idiots,” and so on. I find it very distressing that many voters focus on these imaginary woes as they ignore these same realities.

Even gravediggers are sick of these jerkoffs.

The internet has allowed the instantiation of alt-realities and allowed volumes of disinformation to be propagated in an oversimplified form to entice the uneducated and undereducated who resent the concept of meritocracy and would actually welcome an authoritarian who would suppress the best and brightest professional individuals, scientific and statistical data and instead rely solely on biases and prejudices.

Lettuce – Guacamole – Bacon – Tomato & Quinoa

I’ve worked psychiatric triage and emergency response for community mental health centers.

I’ve been out on barricade situations, wearing a flack vest. I’ve dealt with people zapped on PCP. I’ve watched people with terrible schizophrenia decompensate before my very eyes.

I’ve written many an involuntary hold, and the Q-Anon delusions are as batsh*t psychotic as anything I’ve ever heard.

Trump era result: From seeing and doing something about reality to denying it and dissing the real problem solvers.

Nasty fascist covid spreading lying racist Putin loving election rigging sexist child imprisoning anti democracy Republicans have no redeeming values, vote them all out.

Conspiracy theories attempt to explain events as the secretive plots of powerful people. While conspiracy theories are not typically supported by evidence, this doesn’t stop them from blossoming. Conspiracy theories damage society in a number of ways. To help minimise these harmful effects, The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, by Stephan Lewandowsky and John Cook, explains why conspiracy theories are so popular, how to identify the traits of conspiratorial thinking, and what are effective response strategies. (Available in 8 languages)

https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/conspiracy-theory-handbook/

Sad when the POTUS makes ridiculous conspiracy theories politically correct…

You just know that, if it’s measurable at all, somebody will have done it and posted the results on line. So here they are for the colors of the world’s 192 national flags: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/xf-csts.html

Brown, gray, and purple appear on respectively 4.69%, 3.13%, and 1.04% of them. If that seems like a lot, it’s because most flags have multiple colors. The top 3 colors — red, white, and blue — appear on respectively 77.08%, 72.92%, and 53.13% of them.

Vexillology is fun!

Just wait ’til you see the parade!

Now the Pope is promoting civil unions for same sex couples. This is bogus because this will allow bigots to come up with laws that treat civil unions differently than marriage. Separate but equal doesn’t work because they are inherently UNequal.

Kudos. You nailed it.

Instead of a rainbow, it just gets dirtier, duller, and more grey.